This year marked the third annual Micah Hyde Charity Softball game that supports his IMagINe for Youth Foundation. Fans showed up in full support, selling out Sahlen Field.

After back-to-back victories for Micah Hyde leading the defense in the 2019 and 2022 charity softball games, he returned to the field this year for number three. 

“I can’t even put into words how much this means for IMagINe Youth, myself [and] my family,” Hyde said.

The IMagINe for Youth Foundation hosts the game to raise proceeds for underprivileged youth sports in the greater Buffalo area. 

“We’ve got high hopes about giving back to the NICU at Oishei Children’s Hospital,” Hyde said. “We, you know, just a lot of things that we continue to do, the kicks for kids events that we put on here in Buffalo, the back to school backpacks, the school drives that we do. So this allows us to do a lot more and make it bigger and better.”

In 2022, the IMagINe for Youth Foundation donated $100,000 of the proceeds to the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo for families impacted by the mass shooting in Buffalo last May 14.

“And we knew as we did the softball game that was going to brighten up a lot of people and put smiles on their face,” Hyde said. “So we were happy that we were able to do that last year and you know this year just coming back out here, just getting to put more smiles on people’s faces.”

This year’s event packed Sahlen Field with 16,000 fans and although Hyde is grateful for the amount of love, he isn’t surprised by it.

“This isn’t surprising to me, the city of Buffalo this is what they do, they rally around us and love us and we’re raising a lot of money for the kids.”

It’s a tradition Hyde hopes will hold out.

“You know, hopefully in the future, I’m not going to play another 20 years,” Hyde said. “But our goal and our plan is to continue this thing on, something you know that fans can look forward to.”